Well-boat

//ˈwɛlbəʊt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A fishing vessel designed to carry live fish in a tank or well.

    "They [the "Hollanders", that is, Dutch] have One Hundred Dogger-Boats, of One Hundred and Fifty Tuns a piece, or thereabouts: Seaven Hundred Pincks and Well-Boats, from Sixty to One Hundred Tuns a piece; which altogether fiſh upon the Coaſts of England and Scotland, for Cod and Ling only; [...]"

Example

More examples

"They [the "Hollanders", that is, Dutch] have One Hundred Dogger-Boats, of One Hundred and Fifty Tuns a piece, or thereabouts: Seaven Hundred Pincks and Well-Boats, from Sixty to One Hundred Tuns a piece; which altogether fiſh upon the Coaſts of England and Scotland, for Cod and Ling only; [...]"

Etymology

From well + boat.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.